WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2012—Brian Protiva, CEO and co-founder of ADVA Optical Networking, a global telecommunications company headquartered in Munich, Germany, will give a keynote presentation at the plenary session of the 2013 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC), being held March 17 – 21, 2013 in Anaheim, Calif. Protiva’s presentation, titled “Capitalizing on Network Transformation in the Age of Programmable, Multi-Layer Infrastructures,” will take place March 19, from 8 – 11 a.m. in the Anaheim Convention Center.

Protiva will discuss how component and system providers can make inroads into new markets and tap new sources of revenue with optical communications technologies resulting from the ever-increasing bandwidth demand. He will highlight both key opportunities and the challenges that arise when building multi-layer programmable infrastructures for carriers, Internet service providers and enterprise users, including next generation backhaul for LTE and LTE Advanced.

Protiva co-founded ADVA Optical Networking in 1994 initially focusing on creating the company’s marketing, sales and growth strategy. Under his leadership, ADVA Optical Networking has steadily grown to become a global market leader in Ethernet access devices and Metropolitan Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) systems. To date, ADVA Optical Networking's innovative Optical and Ethernet solutions have been deployed at more than 10,000 enterprises and 250 carriers around the world. Prior to co-founding ADVA Optical Networking, Protiva was a managing director at AMS Technologies (now the EGORA Group), which he joined in 1987. Protiva earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he says he developed his entrepreneurial spirit.

“Hearing from an industry leader like Brian will be a conference highlight for OFC/NFOEC attendees, as his company has been instrumental in the creation of platforms with some of the fastest, highest-capacity and most agile networks available today,” said OFC/NFOEC 2013 General Co-Chair Vishnu Shukla of Verizon Labs. “His pivotal keynote will take a much-needed look at how the industry can address the coming transformation of global 24/7 communications networks.”

The widely-attended plenary session will include talks from distinguished speakers on some of the hottest topics facing the industry today—high-speed broadband deployment, software-defined networks, and network infrastructure. Protiva joins other plenary session speakers Caio Bonilha, president of Telebras in Brazil and Nick McKeown, professor of engineering and computer science at Stanford University.

OFC/NFOEC brings together industry professionals for discussion and dissemination of cutting-edge research on a diverse set of topics including optical network design and optimization, cloud and datacenter networking, flexible grid networks, ultra-high-bandwidth technologies, broadband access to the home, high-speed photonic integration and advanced networks for mobile and wireline services. The event hosts the world’s largest exposition of optical communications, fiber optic networking products and systems.

About OFC/NFOEC

For more than 35 years, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) has been the premier destination for converging breakthrough research and innovation in telecommunications, optical networking, fiber optics and, recently, datacom and computing. Consistently ranked in the top 200 tradeshows in the United States, and named one of the Fastest Growing Trade Shows in 2012 by TSNN, OFC/NFOEC unites service providers, systems companies, enterprise customers, IT businesses, and component manufacturers, with researchers, engineers, and development teams from around the world. OFC/NFOEC includes dynamic business programming, an exposition of more than 550 companies, and cutting-edge peer-reviewed research that, combined, showcase the trends and pulse of the entire optical communications industry.

OFC/NFOEC is managed by the Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc), and the IEEE Photonics Society. Visit www.ofcnfoec.org.

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